Super Arrow needs no powers - just super abs

Film, music and TV critic

These days you can't go near a cinema without a superhero striding through a devastated city to right some wrongs, but television still has cape fear: superheroes are apparently too big for our small screens. The exception is Arrow (Channel Nine, 8.30pm), the US series that reworks the veteran DC Comics character , the Green Arrow, for the 21st century.

While the ''Green'' part of his name was dropped, and he prefers a jumpsuit and hood over spandex and a mask, Arrow is otherwise your regular superhero: billionaire playboy by day, mysterious avenger by night.

Oliver Queen (Stephen Amell) spent five years on a tropical island after his family's yacht was sabotaged, killing his father. Now he's back making amends, using his dad's clue-laden notebook as a guide, although based on the conspiracies suggested by it, a synopsis of Lost would probably answer most of the questions.

Does the Arrow have superpowers? Not really, unless you count his phenomenal abs. Oliver likes to analyse crime while working out shirtless; I'm pretty sure Sherlock Holmes also did one-armed chin-ups while immersed in deduction. A shout out to his not-at-all cliched sidekicks: dutiful African-American voice of reason, John Diggle (David Ramsey), and Felicity Smoak (Emily Bett Rickards), who must be a computer whiz because she's a blonde with glasses.

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Tonight, Arrow finds that a masked vigilante, the Savior, is taking out his targets, while flashbacks to his island years tie into a larger conspiracy that reaches into his own family via a not-so-loving mother.

Like most superheroes, Arrow tends to the stoic loner outline, although his cover as a nightclub owner allows him to have some fun; maybe his next adversary could be Lindsay Lohan as the Party Animal, a super villain who won't leave the VIP room. Oliver is at his best when he's sardonic. "You've spent a lot of time under that hood," cautions Diggle. "It keeps my ears warm," Arrow replies.

The list of classic sitcoms burnt by commercial network programming is long and unfortunate - that's why you need to make a date with Parks and Recreation (SBS Two, 7.05pm), which has started airing on weeknights. The first series was good but not great, but the current second series is where the show becomes hilariously complete.

Leslie Knope (Amy Poehler) also thinks she's a superhero. She's actually a local government bureaucrat in Pawnee, Indiana, who has spent too much time making Hillary Clinton scrapbooks. Leslie is a dedicated overachiever in the midst of dilettantes and eccentrics, most notably her Libertarian boss and bacon aficionado Ron Swanson (the brilliant Nick Offerman), who would like to end all government services apart from nuclear weapons.

Leslie's attempts to turn a dangerous pit into a park backfire, but how can you be angry about someone whose online purchases include a bucket of cake and a pillow-shaped-like Daniel Craig. She's no superhero, but Leslie Knope is flying high.